As the Book of Songs says, "My heart is not cobble stone, which cannot be rolled over and over." It means "my heart cannot be changed easily", initially indicating faithful love, and was later on describing mentality and emotion. Heart essentially has nothing to do with stone, if it is associated with stone, it may impresses us as hard-hearted. Usually, the saying was more used to describe female, and is also often used by female. Wu Yang's works appear to be depicting stones, but they essentially express feelings. The title of exhibition defines it as "Flowery Heart, Flowery Stone." Stone is externalized heart, and flower is the beautiful dress of heart. Flowery stone is actually the heart in beautiful dress. Heart is not stone, but it is compared to stone; and flower is not dress, but it resembles beautiful dress.

　　Wu Yang fell in love with art and art design in her childhood. She enrolled in Beijing Arts and Crafts School at first, and then Central Academy of Art and Design. She once designed textile, clothing and created a brand, so she was intuitively sensitive to textile and figured cloth. She once worked in U.K. and migrated to North America. whether establishing a fashion brand or being a housewife, she was always dedicative to what she decided to do, and resolved when she decided to give up. However, the British ancient Stonehenge and Canadian iceberg impressed her deeply with their coldness and magnificence, hardness and softness. They change with heart, and remain exquisite but inconstant.

　　As a matter of fact, Wu Yang has already got used to children's laugh and cry as a mother; but as an artist, she would prefer the quietness alone. The contrast and difference often drove Wu Yang to reflect and identify herself. The tranquility delivered in her paintings reveals the valuable loneliness, but carrying not a little mania or melancholy. The loneliness has nothing to do with status, wealth or busy life, but it indicates a woman's coolness in front of death, terror, joy or peace. Contemplating on the meaning of life in such a lonely state demonstrates the heaviness of life in silence.

　　Wu Yang's paintings always show a kind of "coquettishness." It is a kind of subtle and delicate female charm, and a kind of sweet aftertaste. Female charm is not only limited to physiological difference, but also cultural flavor. The "coquettishness" in cultural flavor logically means inconceivable in language, and inexpressible in behavior. Wu Yang's "coquettish" style came from her practice in fashion world. Fashion, besides covering up people's private parts and keeping warmth, has an most important function: to attract the opposite sex. Male strength and handsomeness, female tenderness and fascination, or pureness and gentleness are always the target of design. Such training and contrast gave her stronger awareness to female characteristics. Just like the single color of reddish brown, with less obvious hue, it seems redder when getting close to green, so it is finally identified as warm color and can be tuned to even warmer color, until the mutually-excluding and mutually-supplementing relationship is reached.

　　Lighting is very important in western painting, but Wu Yang always adopts virtual light to create a stage effect. Indeed, the painting frame creates the stage for stones and flowers, colorful or solemn contexts. I know she once committed to literature, wrote medium-length novels about Chinese people's life abroad and composed interesting children's picture books. That is why her creations are always characterized by stories and narrations. Reviewing her paintings with that information in mind, both the stones and the paintings are meaningful and sentimental.

　　Wu Yang favors stone, since its texture and volume deliver the sense of strength. Stone means original simplicity without any ornament, and symbolizes eternity no matter how time flies. It seems her pursuit is quite different from ordinary urban women's daily pursuits, but it is the most valuable part. A woman seeking for the meaning of life is intelligent, and her pursuit of truth cannot be hidden behind a light soft veil. This is a deeper investigation. Although the world people pursue things superficial, she sticks to her philosophy of life -- seeking the truth. Textile is something containing female traits. The female traits were interwoven in numerous latitude and longitude lines, and rich expressions were printed out with light or heavy colors. In Chinese culture, weaving was traditionally a women's skill. Her persistence in the tradition should be attributed to her work experience and education background in the Central Academy of Art and Design. But as a woman, who has been abroad, always prefers more flamboyant colors.

　　Wu Yang once depicted the stone wrapped with cotton print. The idea was in no way fresh, but Wu Yang did it differently. She never wrapped and tied it up, but only covered it loosely, bringing a new sense and meaning to the audience. She even imagined that the stone had a flowery surface, which gave the lumpy stone an alternative identity. This is a very feminine imagination. In her sculpture, she also demonstrated her unique characteristics by combining use of metal and textile, and delivered a brand new visual experience.

　　Obviously, the stones, textiles and flowers in Wu Yang's paintings symbolize heart: Heart is stone, and heart is flower too. Wrapping stone up is shielding heart and protecting ourselves. Flowery stone resembles heart flowers blossom with joy. The joy is not ordinary gaiety, but the happiness from enjoying the loneliness and freedom -- the unreasonable happiness in the eyes of ordinary people. Some people concern the symbolic meaning in Wu Yang's paintings, some concern the surrealistic factor in her paintings, and some even concern her as a complete feminist. But in my eyes, these traits cannot outline her and her art; I would describe her as a loner seeking for the freedom of soul. Having experienced sweets and bitters of life, some artists' creative desire may fade with time. They may muddle through by depicting a certain popular theme with other's feelings. But Wu Yang still has very strong desire to express, because she has got personal experience through observation. The seemingly quiet life does not freeze her thinking, so possibility of life evolution is always there.

　　"My heart is not cobble stone, which cannot be rolled over and over..."

Yu Ding(Vice Dean and Professor of the School of Humanities, CAFA)